


Greyscale

by Roca



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Anorexia, Eating Disorders, Recovery, Restrictive Eating, slight mentions of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 10:30:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2385107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roca/pseuds/Roca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Myka likes to be in control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shame

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a post on Tumblr in which someone speculated that Myka had an eating disorder based on a few comments made in "Nevermore." (I'd link it here, but I don't know how!) That idea really struck a nerve with me, since I have a bit of a history with what can loosely be called "eating troubles," so I decided to write a little bit about it.  
> If you are at all sensitive to eating issues or anything of the sort, I'd really encourage you not to read this. I've been there, and it sucks, and I don't want to bring back bad memories or behaviors.  
> With that out of the way, here we go!

 

                When Myka was ten years old and the smartest kid in fifth grade, she came across a word in one of her books that she was not familiar with. Myka being very much Myka, she immediately needed to know what it meant.

                _Anorexic_. Her trusty Oxford English dictionary defined it quickly enough, but even her shrewd young mind could not quite wrap itself around the idea of a person purposely starving themselves – and for _beauty_ , no less.

                To confirm that the condition actually existed, she dug through piles of _Gray’s Anatomy_ and dozens of other tomes that had similar names and Latin-drenched pages until she finally found it: a photograph of a young woman, shoulder blades jutting out grotesquely, arms like a thin layer of wax poured over bone, breasts barely dimples on her shirt, hair brittle as straw, legs frail and tinged with purple, sunken eyes dull and lifeless in their sockets –

                She slammed the book shut so quickly that she caught her finger in between the pages and jumped back with a yelp and the sudden sting. Rattled, she stuck her finger in her mouth to suck away the pain and stared at the unassuming cover of the medical textbook. She had been convinced.

                As Myka carefully replaced all the books she had taken carefully back on their shelves, her mind bounced the image of the sick girl around like an unfading echo, bringing the horror back before her even as the book was tucked safely out of sight on the shelf.

                Myka realized that she’d never been so unsettled (not even when Bambi’s mom had died during the movie and she’d cried all over her favorite stuffed bunny). She’d seen and heard of strange, even scary things in the endless stories available to her, but the woman and the picture bothered her more than any of them because she simply could not understand _why_.

                When you were sick, you took medicine and saw the doctor. When there was war and poverty and famine (last week’s bonus vocab word from her reading class, she recalled proudly), you did something. You raised an army or got to work or grew something else to eat, or else you just left.

                But what could you do when the thing you were supposed to be fighting was yourself? Where could you go to get away when the monster lived within you?

                She tried to get back to the story she had been reading before, but even she could not concentrate with her mind spinning as it was. Setting it aside, she pondered going back to the shelf and searching for something that would explain, would set her mind at ease, but she discarded the idea almost at once. She knew that she couldn’t bear to glance at the picture again even accidentally, and who knew if there were more like it waiting to pop out at her from the medical books?

                What she really wanted, she thought, was to go and ask her father or mother what it all meant. But Dad had rules about learning and reading – “Any daughter of mine,” he’d said sternly a few years back, looking down at her over the old Hemmingway collection he’d been perusing before she’d interrupted him with a query, “is smart enough to look up the answer to her own questions.”

                He was that way about everything (especially homework), but this somehow felt different. Dangerous, almost.

                But still, rules were rules – and if there was one thing Myka Bering loved as much as books, it was order.

                As she clambered up the stairs to her room to put away her novel, she comforted herself with one thought: no matter what, she would never have to end up like that other girl.

* * *

 

                When Myka was twelve years old and top of her seventh grade class, she skipped lunch on purpose for the first time.

                She had just gotten out of gym class the hour before. Running laps wasn’t too difficult, but Myka hated it and had only pushed herself through two of them before she settled in to watch the rest of the girls huff and puff around the track a few more times, too preoccupied with trying to decipher Shakespearian couplets in her head to mind the rolled eyes they had sent her direction.

                As she pulled out her chair and opened up her lunchbox, a shout rang out across the lunchroom. “Hey Myka, are you really gonna eat all that?” Startled, Myka looked up into the amused face of one of the girls she’d watched run last period. The girl snickered as she caught sight of Myka’s pudding cup and sandwich, and then continued in a superior tone, “We burned off all those calories in gym. What did you do, besides sit around the whole class?”

                Myka dropped her eyes, ashamed. Her mother had talked of things like calories and carbohydrates and cholesterol, but those were just funny little “c”-words that didn’t mean anything outside of a nutritional capacity. She suddenly felt the shame of them, sharp and sudden as a knife.

                “I’m not really that hungry,” she told the girl, abruptly shoving the food back where it came from. “I was just checking what my mom packed.”

                “Okay, whatever,” her tormentor said, already bored of her newest victim, and she wandered off to chatter with her friends.

                Alone at her table, Myka stared blankly at her lunchbox. Amazingly, what she said was true: she wasn’t hungry. At least, she could tell herself that.

                She stayed where she was until the bell rang, not moving a muscle. When at last her classmates began to rise from their seats and funnel into the hall, she stood up, strode over to the trash can, and determinedly threw everything she had brought to eat away.

                Her lunchbox was empty in her hand, but she felt as if a heavy weight was lying on her chest as she walked off to English, her stomach a hard knot inside her.


	2. The Hollow Girls

When Myka was fourteen years old and the brightest freshman in the high school, she started running.

                She wasn’t entirely sure why she began – she’d always loathed running, always swore the only time she had for athletics was taken up by her twice-weekly fencing lessons.

                She’d just finished her homework one evening and had looked up through the window to see one of the sophomores she had geometry with jogging by. Well, she’d thought, why not?

                The first day, she made it to the park and back. The week after, she ran two laps around. After the fifth week, she decided to run in the mornings instead of after school – by three-thirty, she was starving and irritable from not eating since breakfast. Before school was better.

                Missing lunch had become as natural a part of her routine as eating it had once been. In fact, it was actually very convenient. She wasn’t pressured to find a group to sit with or try to make friends; she could just perch herself at a corner table and create a barricade of homework and textbooks to keep out the prying eyes of everybody who wondered why the strange girl never seemed to eat.

                Lunch was a useless meal, anyway. It was a far better use of her time to get ahead on her math homework.

                Even if skipping a meal hadn’t been an issue, Myka figured she would have eventually transitioned to earlier runs anyway. The air was cool and crisp in the predawn light, and she took a quiet pleasure in watching the neighborhood as it sat still and silent, only starting to stir as she finally stumbled to a halt outside the bookshop door. It made her actually enjoy running, once she and her body had gotten used to it.

                Her family slowly noticed the change in her routine, and then began to ask why. “Are you working out to impress somebody?” Tracy teased her one evening as they bent over their study materials at the kitchen table. “Some… guy?” She giggled at the scornful look Myka sent her over her history paper, but let it go soon enough.

                Her mother thought that it was nice that she was getting out more, and her father said he didn’t mind her new hobby as long as she kept her grades up and her chores done.

                And as she pushed herself across the street, up the sidewalk, over the hill, Myka was almost happy.

* * *

 

                When Myka was fifteen years old and a hardworking sophomore, she learned how to count.

                It was a simple step for someone as smart as she was to go from glancing at the strange numbers and words listed on her granola bar’s wrapper to finding out what exactly they meant. A trip to the back of the bookstore, a quick skim through _Understanding Nutrition_ , and she was suddenly fluent in the language of calories.

                It would be good for her to keep track, to help her stay healthy and have a balanced diet and do everything the nutrition book had insisted was so important, she reasoned.

In fact, calories were something that Myka’s linear mind could easily, happily understand. Food made her uncomfortable. It was too hard, figuring out what to eat and when to eat it and how to exercise it all away. Calories were exactly the system she needed – numbers that fit neatly into a daily quota, easy as one of her Algebra II problems (and a heck of a lot less complicated than messing about with the law of cosines).

                She found the number she was supposed to have each day in the back of the book, handily listed on a table under her gender, height, and weight. Next came how many it took to lose a pound – if she kept her quota a little lower than her supposed allowance, she’d be slowly but steadily become lighter. The thought made her smile as she shut the thick tome, recalling the delicate downward slope of the graphs they had made in class. Numbers, she decided, made parts of life much easier to understand.

Myka was a little hungrier at first, and her parents made pointed remarks about how much was left on her plate when she was finished with dinner, but the changes weren’t too noticeable. The only real trouble she had was when her father shouted at her for declining a piece of the cake her mother had made for her (“I thought marble was your favorite!), but being disciplined in such a manner was not exactly a rare occurrence.

Life went on much as before, with perhaps a bit more strain. She experimented, sometimes taking in far fewer than she was supposed to. It made her feel strong and almost proud of herself – look at Tracy, who whined if she missed her afternoon snack. Myka hadn’t eaten anything except for a banana at breakfast, and she never said a word. Sometimes she even went below what the nutrition book had cautioned was the lowest safe amount, and felt reckless and thrilled inside the dizzy stupor this induced. Myka, who never broke the rules, was suddenly defying the laws of nature itself.

But sometimes, as she lay in bed at night with her head feeling as hollow as her stomach, Myka wondered how long she could go on. She couldn’t imagine living every day as she had been, but she couldn’t imagine changing either.

She admired infinity as a concept, but it was anguish in application.


	3. Haunted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vague mentions of suicidal thoughts in this chapter, just to give warning.

When Myka was three quarters of the way to sixteen and having a bit of difficulty keeping an A in some of her classes, she passed out for the first time.

                It was at the tail end of passing time, just before fifth period. Myka ducked into the bathroom to relieve herself before class, thankful to find the ladies’ room empty. Peeing in a stall next to another girl was and awkward but necessary part of high school that she was always happy to avoid.

                She quickly flicked the latch on the flimsy plastic door shut and went about her business without any difficulty. But when it was time to stand –

She’d never felt anything like it. Sometimes (most of the time, really), she got a little dizzy when she stood up. Her vision would fade a bit, and she’d have to lean on the wall for a few seconds until she was able to walk. That was fine. That happened to everybody.

But this time, it was as if the whole world was swooping in dizzying circles around her and the bathroom floor had decided to pull a cruel prank and turn into a Tilt-A-Whirl. Just like she had on the ill-fated occasion that Tracy had lured her onto that decrepit fair ride, Myka found herself stumbling drunkenly, hands scrabbling at the wall to find a way to keep her balance. A wave of nausea hit her, and a mangled round of swearwords dribbled from her mouth as she doubled over. Her breathing was heavy, her vision was fuzzy and dim, she couldn’t _see_ , she couldn’t _breathe_ –

And quite suddenly, Myka found herself lying sprawled out on the dingy tiles of the bathroom floor. She vaguely remembered sinking to her knees, but could not recall much else beyond a bleary feeling of deep distress.

Shakily, she pushed herself into a sitting position and then to her feet. Miraculously, nobody seemed to have witnessed her collapse, for which Myka was grateful. She couldn’t imagine what her father would say if the nurse called to tell him that his daughter had fainted at school. He would have been angry, certainly, and then perhaps brought her to the hospital. And when the doctor said that she had low blood sugar and was anemic and had the wrong weight…

Myka shivered at the thought of someone else standing there, seeing that bleak number on the scale. Numbers made this whole eating business easier, but there were some numbers that should never be shared.

And so Myka washed her hands, got a drink of water, and walked to class through the empty hallways. Her teacher frowned at her when she walked in late without a pass, but didn’t pursue the issue. Myka realized, dimly, that she had never been tardy to any class before.

She was briefly worried that they might send a note home to her dad, but was somewhat surprised to find that she was too exhausted to really care what happened.

* * *

 

When Myka was starting her junior year and her grades were once again starting to sour, she stopped eating for three days.

She went to school without breakfast, skipped lunch, and locked herself in her room during family dinners. She dragged herself through her day, scraped through her homework, and didn’t care, just didn’t care, just wanted to stop existing.

She still ran every morning. It hurt, it hurt, more than she thought possible. Her vision blurred, the pain ached in her stomach and legs and pounded ceaselessly in her head. She sometimes wavered into the middle of the road as she struggled up the hill, and she vaguely pondered stepping in front of the cars carelessly rushing by. She wondered how it would feel to have her life splinter away in an instant, blissfully whisked from the agony of waking.

Her family didn’t understand it (not that she did either). Tracy stared at her withering sister with wide, haunted eyes. Her mother was concerned and careful, while her father quickly grew impatient with her “stunt” and demanded that she desist immediately. For the first time in her life, Myka could take grim pleasure in the fact that she would not – could not – obey him.

He was unused to being ignored. It made him angry, at first, and then a little bit frightened. He adopted a soft, cajoling tone with her, so different from his usual gruff manner that it set her even more on edge. She was almost relived when it was interrupted by bursts of his usual ineffective fury, so that she could stare impassively at him as her hurled insults and demands that washed over her like a wave of stale air.  

The deadness inside was the best and worst part of the ordeal, she decided. Everything that had frightened her before seemed muted, and she could stand up to her father more than she ever could when she’d been healthier. Stress from school, from work, from other kids seemed insignificant in the face of her crushing apathy. The only things that mattered were running and purging, filling herself with a kind of purifying presence that would clean out her insides and let her be reborn.

She wondered if this disease has come upon her to shelter her from the world, or if it was more of an affliction than a blessing. She didn’t know why it had chosen her, or she had chosen it; all she could do was try to weather its storm as it battered her day after day.

Her grades dropped. Her teachers became concerned. Her parents shouted and begged and stared at her with stony eyes, but she could not bring herself to move.

She hadn’t picked up a book in weeks. The pounds had been dropping away like petals from a flower, leaving an ugly, skinny stalk behind with bony wrists and an empty gaze.

It was not even about being thin, she knew. It was about being in control of a life in which she had never had much say in her fate.

But still, as the world around her faded to a fading picture in greyscale, she wondered if she could ever come back to life.


	4. Brink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say that people who have a difficult time understanding and loving their body can have a very messed up view of "skinny" and "fat," especially when they look at themselves. Remember, you do you and love yourself while you're at it.  
> Also, if I seem to have an excessive hatred of Warren Bering, it's because I have an excessive hatred of Warren Bering. Oops.

It took a long, long time.

There was never any decisive breaking point, a place that she could look back on and recognize as the moment she started to wake up.

One day in late March, she ate on what was supposed to be a purge day. The fundamental piece of her that had insisted that she follow the plan and stick to the rules had simply stepped away for a moment. The day after, the anxiety crashed back over her in a wave, roaring in her ears and tearing at her lungs. She ran twice as far and didn’t eat for two more days.

So it went on – brief bouts of defiance coupled with frantic attempts at compensation. Her weight continued to creep lower, her grades pulled tighter in their downward spiral, and yet there was a revolution rising in her heart.

The changes were small, but they battled onward. A few more calories each day. A couple feet fewer to run. A little less sorrow in her bones.

April first, she went a day without running. On Easter, she ate half a chocolate egg while her mother watched with hopeful heartbreak. To the immense surprise of her classmates, she nibbled at an apple during lunch halfway through the month.

Her handwriting straightened out of its despondently slanted scrawl. Her halfhearted quiz scores and weak attempts at essays slowly grew stronger on a diet of newly-recovered clarity. Her smiles weren’t as fragile. Her hands weren’t as cold.

Once May rolled around, Myka was eating at least once almost every day. “At least” and “almost” were not really normal, but they were miles away from what she had been before.

Still, there had not really been a single catalyst for the change. Maybe it was picking up her first book in months and getting lost in the ink on the page. Maybe it was the way the bitter air had folded in upon itself to let in the first breath of spring. Maybe it was how her favorite teacher – with dark hair, snapping eyes, and a clever smile – had gently laid a hand on her back and told her that she was strong.

Whatever its reasons, the world had finally tired of using her as its plaything.

* * *

 

Things were stilted and strange for a while.

Her family often forgot to call her to the dinner table after her many months of absence, and her mother and sister looked unbearably guilty on the few occasions that she wandered in to join them. Myka ate almost regularly by this point, but she still hated eating in front of others. How must she look, stuffing her disgusting face in front of them, as the food she ate ballooned into fat on her bones?

No, no, it wasn’t like that. More recently, she saw a frail birdlike creature when she looked in the mirror, shivering under the weight of its own judgment. Not an obese monster. Not like she used to.

 Anyway, it was worth it for look of relief that flitted across their faces as she determinedly scooped a spoonful of beans into her mouth. Tracy would smile at her over her glass of milk, and her mother would look down at her plate and release a bit of the tension in her shoulders in a single breathy sigh. Her father’s face would remain impassive, however, and she never met his gaze during the meals they shared.

As soon as her father had sensed the weakness in her resolve, he had resumed his merciless campaign to force her back to normalcy. He’d corner her on the front step after school, demanding to know what she had eaten that day and when she had done so. When he heard her answers, a fierce scowl would settle on his face and he’d bark out a string of commands: eat more, run less, get yourself together. These interrogations left her feeling exhausted and guilty of eating too much, too little, or somehow both.

When she came downstairs in the morning, her parents shoved apples and cereal and plates of eggs at her – her mother with desperate entreaty in her eyes, her father with stern rebuke on his lips.  She had become adept at sidestepping such well-meaning intrusions during her illness, and the skill served her well as she recovered. Apples could be slipped into pockets to be discarded later and bowls of cereal could be surreptitiously dumped down the sink, while eggs could be tucked into napkins and tossed in the trash.

But despite the pressure, despite the way her father hounded her and the pile of bruised apples in her locker, she was making progress.

Her grades, crumpled on the ground in a broken-legged heap, miraculously regained their footing. Of course, her GPA was trashed from being neglected and outright abandoned for the past three quarters of the year. The glorious 4.0 of her freshman year and still-respectable 3.8 from when she was a sophomore were distant, longed-for dreams. Even if she worked herself to the breaking point over the summer and her senior year (which she of course would), she would not be able to get into her top choice of colleges – much less receive a scholarship. The bright, ambitious future she had planned for herself – as a doctor or a chemist or a world-class writer – had faded and died before it could be recognized.

And so, on the brink of summer, Myka Bering had to look anew at the world around her and try to determine her fortune. She could still get into a halfway-decent pre-med program, she decided. Or perhaps go into legal studies. Maybe the future had something else entirely planned for her.

Whatever the case, she felt for the first time in months that she could look ahead of her with something resembling hope. 


	5. Or Whatever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Background is over! Now to bring in the gang! Things will hopefully be a little less sad from here on out.

The future, it turned out, had something both strange and wonderful in store for her. A world of endless wonder, one could almost say.

The great shock of the Warehouse’s existence – much less the fact that she was now supposed to drop everything and move across the country to work there – was enough to set even the boldest of souls reeling. With the stress of navigating her first bizarre, unbelievable, and incredibly dangerous mission added on, Myka was pushed closer to relapsing than she had been since Denver.

Myka thrived on order, but the Warehouse was an entity of chaos. It amazed her (how could it not?), but it also sent her head spinning, her gut clenching, and her body itching to do something to regain control.

No. She knew that wouldn’t make her transition any easier. So the next morning, she accepted Leena’s scones and watched Pete consume an impossible amount of breakfast food with only a vaguely incredulous expression on her face. She even managed to smile at Artie when he offered her a plate of cookies after they arrived at the Warehouse.

After a while, Myka became used to it all. Her anxiety faded like an old bad habit, and she was almost at ease in the odd new place she was now meant to call home. Except –

What if they knew? What if they noticed? She hadn’t been really sick in a long time, but the ghosts of her illness still haunted her steps wherever she went. Some days, she was perfectly fine; others, she would be suddenly struck with a wave of disgust at the sight of whatever happened to be crouched on her plate and would have to steel herself before she could take even a bite.

Pete had already teased her for her “sugar-free” policy, and Leena had made a gentle comment about what a picky eater she was. Artie was the one that really made her nervous, though. Abrupt and secretive, he seemed to know far more about his two newest recruits than she was entirely comfortable with.

He’d mentioned her first boss’ name once, casually, and she’d almost fallen out of her chair in surprise. Pete had confirmed her suspicions the next day – Artie, he swore, knew things about his life that he definitely shouldn’t. Sometimes Myka caught him staring at her with a knowing, almost pensive look, especially when she was eating. Perhaps she was just being paranoid, but in this place, it seemed entirely possible that this scruffy, peculiar man was privy to the deepest of her secrets.

But Myka didn’t have the time to worry about it too much. Artie kept them busy, scrambling across the country in search of oddities that were often as amazing as they were lethal, and her unease dwindled as the four of them – and later five – became more and more familiar with each other.

Myka was a grownup now. She could deal with stress in safer, kinder ways. And if the laws of the universe itself had changed for her in these past few weeks, then it seemed high time that her own rules follow suit.

* * *

 

Though the idea might once have terrified her, Myka found that she didn’t mind when her little band of misfits became aware that food could be a touchy topic for her.

Claudia was the first one to really pick up on it. Though she was the newest addition to the group, the spunky and vivacious girl quickly wriggled her way into Myka’s heart. She was like another sister, or a younger friend – someone she could collaborate and laugh with, but was at the same time fiercely protective of.

One weekend, a few hours after she and Pete had returned from a particularly grueling journey to liberate Emily Dickinson’s ink blotter from a melodramatic amateur poet, Myka found herself nodding off wearily at the kitchen table. It was only about three in the afternoon, but she felt exhausted enough to curl up on the carpet and sleep for a week.

Claudia chose that moment to swing into a room with an energetic, “Hey, Myka!” Propping her weary features up into a smile, Myka felt a twinge of envy at Claudia’s carefree nature and thought wistfully of when she had been that young.

“Hi, Claud,” she greeted, the nickname still new on her lips but somehow right at home there. “What have you been doing?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Claudia replied. “Artie’s had me working on the Gooery’s pipes all day, and I just snuck out to grab something to eat. I’m _starving_.” She heaved a dramatic sigh as she slouched against the doorframe.

“Huh,” Myka said sympathetically. “He can be a little too… focused sometimes. He forgets that we’re people, not tools.” Claudia rolled her eyes and muttered in agreement. “But he does care, you know. About all of us.”

“Yeah,” Claudia said, her grimace softening into a grin. “I guess he does.” She brightened suddenly, straightening up. “Hey, want me to grab you something while I’m making lunch?” She glanced at the clock and made a face. “Or dinner? Whatever?”

“Ah, no. That’s okay,” Myka replied – a bit too hastily, perhaps, because Claudia’s face fell.

“Oh, damn, sorry!” Claudia looked positively dismayed. “I totally forgot…”

There was a minute of perfect silence. “Forgot what?” Myka asked delicately.

Claudia seemed at a loss for words; she gestured sporadically as she attempted to cobble together an explanation. “I, uh, noticed that you… don’t eat. Well, I mean, unless we all are, like at dinner and stuff. But you don’t snack, or you know, do anything by yourself. And you’re always super careful about what you do eat. And, um, I guess I was kind of reminded of this other girl that… didn’t.”

“Claudia.” Myka’s tone was smooth but brittle, like a hair-thin layer of ice over a pond. “What are you talking about?”

The young girl expelled her breath in a distressed puff, and the vitality seemed at once to have seeped from her. Myka couldn’t imagine how, only moments before, she had thought that Claudia seemed untroubled and cheery. “I was in the hospital for a little bit. For psych stuff.” Myka nodded, and Claudia dropped her gaze to stare determinedly at the far wall before continuing. “When I was there, I got to know a couple of girls with eating disorders.”

 Myka wanted to interrupt, to defend herself, to say that she didn’t know anything about that –but something made her sit in silence as Claudia continued. “They just had these… systems. Like, don’t eat before five or after seven, and only have exactly this in such amount every single day. I noticed you doing that, too.”

“I don’t…”

“You have one cup of the same granola every morning, an apple and a sandwich for lunch, and very polite little portions of whatever Leena serves for dinner.” Claudia’s grin had returned, now humorless and bitter. “I know my crazy, Myka.”

“I’m not crazy,” Myka said quietly. Claudia jerked as if she had been slapped and immediately began to apologize. Myka stood, crossed over to her, and grasped her by the shoulders. Beneath her hands, Claudia immediately stilled. “I’m not crazy, Claud. And neither are you. People have issues. People deal with them.” She stared directly into the girl’s bright and wary eyes. “And people get over it.”

The moment held for an eternity, then slowly faded. “Yeah,” Claudia said at last, wiping her eyes and looking away. “Uh, I’m sorry.” Myka’s only reply was a brief squeeze on her shoulder. “And… thanks.”

“Let’s go get you some lunch,” Myka told her with a careful smile. “Or dinner.”

“Or whatever,” Claudia added, and they both let out something that was half-sigh, half-laugh as they made their way out.


	6. Voice

Myka kept Pete in the dark a little longer.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, not really. It was just that she couldn’t imagine why it would matter. (At least, this was what she told herself.) Theirs was a professional relationship, even if they did squabble over who ate the last of the Rice Krispies and spent more time rolling their eyes at each other than was entirely appropriate. Still, she couldn’t see that it was at all relevant – or that it was any of his business.

That is, until the day that it very abruptly and rudely became _completely_ his business.

It was supposed to be a fairly simple snag-and-bag of an obscure but dangerous artifact. Residents of Brighton, England had been dropping dead of what appeared to be tuberculosis at an alarming rate, and Artie had traced their symptoms to a story involving a certain Princess Amelia and her illicit love affair with a lower member of the nobility over a hundred years ago. Tracking down her amulet was fairly simple – they dropped by the Royal Pavilion after hours, flashed their badges, and were rather bemusedly waved inside. After that, it was just a matter of prying the princess’ amulet (a gift from her lover) off of its display and booking it out of there – at least in theory.

What none of them had accounted for was that Princess Amelia’s older brother, King Henry IV, had left an artifact of his own. And where else would it rest if not at his favorite palace by the sea?

Pete was normally the one to get into trouble by touching artifacts without gloves. Looking back on it, it might almost have been funny if it had been Pete who had been whammied by the king’s favorite chalice. Her partner might not have minded being besieged by the appetite of one of the most corpulent kings in history (actually, he might not have even noticed anything different).

But it was Myka who stumbled into the cabinet of glassware after her partner gave her a playful shove, and it was her wildly flailing arm that sent the copper cup clattering to the ground.

“Woah, Mykes, you okay?” Pete laughed, hauling her back to her feet. “I didn’t mean to…” He trailed off, staring at her uncertainly. “Myka?”

Myka was frozen in the position he’d left her, half-leaning against the cabinet. “Pete?” she whispered dazedly.

“What, did you hit your head?” Pete patted her shoulder apologetically. “We should probably get you back to the hotel, let you lie down for a bit.”

“No,” Myka snapped, straightening suddenly and scanning the room with an almost predatory gleam in her eye. “I’m hungry.”

“Okay, now I know you hit your head,” Pete said, grabbing her shoulder and peering at her face. “’Cause that’s _my_ line.”

“I’m starving,” Myka insisted. “Really, really… oh my God.” With that, she sprinted from the room, leaving a startled Pete behind her.

“Woah, Myka, wait!” He yelled, and took off in pursuit.

Pete was in good shape, but he wasn’t a whippet-thin marathoner like Myka. He lost her long before he made it off the palace grounds and had to spend a few frightening minutes scrambling around the network of narrow, winding streets near the dockside. Just when he had given up hope and was opening up his Farnsworth to call Artie, he detected the faint but familiar sound of screams in the distance that lead him to a cheap little restaurant a few blocks away.

When he finally skidded to a halt just inside the doorway, he was greeted by what was certainly the most bizarre sight he could ever have imagined, even in his new line of work.

Myka was holding the restaurant’s cowering owner at Tesla-point with one hand while using the other to shovel French fries straight from the fryer and into her mouth. As he watched, she stuffed down the last grease-soaked handful and proceeded to tear into the pile (an actual _pile_ ) of cheeseburgers beside her.

Most of the customers had fled, but a couple were observing the spectacle with a repulsed sort of fascination. He shouldered them aside as he approached, keeping his hands held unthreateningly in front of him as he sidled forward. Myka was too intent on her food to pay her surroundings any mind, and only noticed him after she finished her sixth burger and looked around in search of something else to devour.

“Pete?” she asked hopefully, cocking her head at him. “Do you have any food?”

“Uh, yeah. For sure,” he told her, thinking quickly. “Remember that room we were in at the palace? With the fancy table and all the silverware?” She nodded eagerly. “Well, I saw about twenty Ho-Hos hidden beneath the table.”

“Really?” Myka’s face shone with excitement. “Let’s go!” she pulled her gun off the shell-shocked chef and prepared to fly out the door. Pete quickly grabbed her arm, pulling her close to whisper conspiratorially in her ear.

“You need to wait for me, though, so I can show you where they are.” Myka nodded, pouting, and he sighed in relief. “Okay, here we go.”

Their return to the palace was a bit less hectic, though Pete did have to hold Myka’s arm to restrain her from grabbing food out of the hands of the passersby after she snatched and scarfed down some poor scandalized lady’s hot dog. All in all, Pete was relieved when Myka was quickly able to point out the goblet thingy she’d touched (after being informed that it was a condition of scoring the Ho-Hos) and he was able to thrust it into the neutralizer bag with a satisfying burst of sparks.

That is, he was relieved until Myka immediately dropped into a sobbing, retching heap on the ground.

First, he thought it was an after-effect of the artifact. He dropped to his knees, gathering her into an awkward yet heartfelt hug and muttering soothing nonsense. “Shh, shh. It’s okay. You just got whammied a little. You’re fine.”

“No I’m not!” she shouted, shoving him away violently. “I haven’t done that, eaten like… I haven’t done that to myself in years!”

“What?” Pete’s face was two parts concern and one part confusion, and Myka almost hated him for caring.

“I-I was sick, Pete,” she told him in a low, broken voice. “For a really long time. I thought I was over it, thought I was better. But  here it is again.” She wiped away a few of her tears, disgusted with herself.

“Sick? You mean, like, eating sick? Like, anorexic?” he asked tentatively.

“Yes. No. A little.” Myka sighed. “Not officially. But I had trouble with it for a long time.”

“I’m sorry, Myka." Pete, whose mouth usually could never stop running, suddenly seemed to be at a loss for words. "I wish I'd known. I haven’t exactly been Mr. Sensitive when it comes to food around you.”

The sincerity in his face, the fact that he was apologizing for being his juvenile, food-loving, goofy self was more than she could take. “I know. I didn’t think it would matter.” She cracked him a crooked grin. “I guess you’re a little more likely to run into food-related curses when you work at a magical Warehouse than at the Secret Service.”

“No, it’s not just that.” Pete gripped her elbow, squeezed it, and continued softly, “We care about you, Myka. You can tell us this stuff. We won’t get mad. We just want you to talk about it and – and be okay.”

“Oh.” Myka looked embarrassed and touched at the same time. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Pete said with a friendly punch to her shoulder. “In fact, that was kind of cool.”

“What?”

“Not the mushy talk thing,” he said hastily. “I mean, I have _never_ seen anyone fit that many fries in their mouth at once. You’re going to have to show me how you did that.”

* * *

 

It was Pete who insisted that she talk to a doctor.

“It sounds like you’ve had a rough time with this,” he began one day. She immediately opened her mouth, eyes narrowed, but Pete cut her off. “And I know you don’t want to tell me about it. But you’ve gotta talk to someone.” He concluded his pronouncement with a pleading look, and that was what made Myka relent.

Sighing, she bit her lip pensively. The idea of seeing some sort of therapist had occurred to her before, but it had made her uneasy and she’d pushed it aside. Her father, disdainful of “shrinks,” had forbidden her from visiting one in the early days of her sickness, and she clearly recalled how scornfully he had spoken of them. “No child of mine,” he had added at the end of his rant, “is crazy enough to need one of those people.”

Even when she was an independent adult, her hesitance had lingered. By then her issues had abated enough that she’d been able to convince herself that it wasn’t necessary anyway and quickly push the notion out of her mind.

But now?

She’d lost control during a mission. It hadn’t been much of a problem that time, but that was just a stroke of luck. Myka knew that she couldn’t afford to break down in the field when Genghis Khan’s riding boots were sending some poor bystander on a murderous conquering rampage or the gavel from Salem’s courthouse had put somebody in a hanging mood. Pete depended on her. These people depended on her.

So she approached Artie about setting up an appointment with the Warehouse doctor. She’d found mention of her in one of the manual’s appendices during her first time through it, and Myka carefully re-read the section on doctor-patient protocol and requesting a visit before she brought it up with her boss.

Artie, it turned out, was surprisingly amenable to the idea. “You want to see Vaness- um, Dr. Calder?” he asked, sounding almost excited. Myka nodded, and his grin (since when did Artie grin?) faded somewhat as he finally seemed to process what that meant. “Wait, wait, wait. Are you hurt? Are you sick?” He looked her up and down critically and moved to put a hand on her forehead, but Myka firmly pushed him away.

“No, I’m fine. It’s just, uh, I think I pulled a muscle in my leg yesterday.” She massaged her calf, wincing theatrically, to demonstrate. “I just wanted to get it checked out.”

“Fine, fine. But why not go to the clinic in Univille?” His rebuttal seemed halfhearted at best, and he stared at her almost hopefully as he waited for her explanation.

She grimaced. “Everyone in Univille hates us, Artie. Also, how am I supposed to explain that I the object I tripped over happened to be part of the Edmund Fitzgerald’s hull, which then proceeded to-”

“All right, all right,” Artie interrupted, waving her off. He seemed perplexingly cheerful. “I’ll see what I can arrange.”

So it was that, less than a week later, Myka found herself perched on one of the B&B’s couches in front of a gentle-looking blonde woman with soft hands and an understanding smile.

“So, Agent Bering, what can I do for you?” she asked as soon as they had shaken hands and taken their seats. “Artie mentioned leg pain – is that correct?”

“No, actually,” Myka admitted, fiddling with a loose thread on one of Leena’s pillows. She glanced up to see Doctor Calder staring at her expectantly, eyebrows raised. Dredging up all of her available courage, Myka heaved it out in a single burst: “It’s something else.”

“Ah.” Doctor Calder nodded briskly. “I think I understand.”

“What? You… know?”

“It’s not too hard to guess,” Vanessa replied, setting a friendly hand on her knee. “You aren’t the first agent to wind up pregnant on the job.” She chuckled at Myka’s look of shock, perhaps interpreting it as surprise at her perceptiveness. “Well, I wasn’t expecting to set up any large-scale tests, so I might need to go and get some equipment-”

“Doctor Calder,” Myka squeaked, regaining her voice.

“You can call me Vanessa, dear,” her doctor said kindly.

“Vanessa. I am _not_ pregnant.”

“Oh.” Vanessa looked taken aback and acutely embarrassed. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“That’s alright.” Myka couldn’t help but laugh at the bizarreness of what had occurred. “Trust me, getting pregnant is the last thing I have planned right now.”

“Understandable.” Vanessa smiled back at her, apparently relieved that she hadn’t taken her slipup too personally. “So, with that out of the way, what was it that you really wanted to see me about?”

Myka took a deep breath. A few minutes ago, the idea of telling this perfect stranger her story had seemed downright appalling. But now, after seeing what a kind soul she was, it seemed easier.

So she told her. Not everything – she left out the turmoil in her head and focused on the bare bones of the medical side of her illness. Vanessa listened attentively, only once interrupting to gently remind Myka that she was a doctor and ask if she wanted to see a licensed psychologist about the other aspects of her situation. Myka hastily replied in the negative. This was a large step for her, and she wasn’t quite ready for another great leap.

When she finished, the silence in the room seemed far too heavy on the air that had moments earlier held some of her greatest secrets. Vanessa was simply looking at her, and Myka couldn’t meet her eyes.

When the doctor finally spoke, her voice was blessedly free of pity and held concern that was only a shade away from professional. “I’m glad you told me this, Myka. I know that it was difficult.”

“No, it was… Thanks. For listening.”

And Vanessa smiled at her. It was far from the tentative half-flippant, half-scared grin Pete had given her when he had comforted her. Rather, it was similar to the one Claudia had shared that night in the B&B – the look of a woman who had lived through her own personal hell and had been lucky enough to walk away. But Vanessa’s face held none of Claudia’s defiance, just a wise sort of empathy that told Myka she’d seen much worse out in the world but was still troubled by the day-to-day agony of other people.

“Anytime,” was all Vanessa said.

Then they busied themselves with filling out prescriptions (apparently Myka’s iron was far too low, which sounded vaguely dangerous) and calling the pharmacy in town until Vanessa had to leave to catch her flight.

“Thanks again,” Myka told her, rising to shake her hand one last time. “Um, can I ask one last favor? Can you not tell Artie about this? Unless there’s some kind of weird Warehouse rule and you have to.”

Vanessa shook her head. “I would never do anything like that, Myka. You’re a strong woman, and I know that you can take care of yourself. It doesn’t matter to him how you were before.”

Long after Vanessa had left, her words kept turning about in Myka’s head. Never before, when it came to her sickness, had she ever thought of herself as strong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been working on my dialogue, but it's never been a strong suit of mine. I hope the characters sounded sort of normal! Also, sorry for the long break. I'm planning to bring in H.G. next chapter, though!


	7. Complicated

Things went to hell very quickly.

Artie was dead and then he wasn’t. Claudia was a traitor and a runaway and then she was back home and innocent. MacPherson was winning and then he was crumbling to ash before their eyes.

All in all, the revelation that H.G. Wells was alive and a woman wasn’t a shocking as it could have been.

There was no denying that she was fascinating, though. Terrifying and brutal, as evidenced by her remorseless execution of the man who had freed her (for the sole purpose of using and manipulating her, but that was beside the point because she _murdered_ him). Quick-thinking and brilliant, as she displayed by rescuing Myka and herself with the grappler. Maybe even compassionate, with the gentle way she’d tended to Claudia as the ridiculous but deadly sports drink raged through her body.

By the time she vanished from the factory, leaving her treasured grappler behind, Myka still wasn’t sure what exactly to think of the woman. She was an enigma, comradery stitched with secrecy and laced with bitter sorrow.

Then came the trip to Russia, and they clicked together like two pieces of broken glass seamlessly fused back into a whole. Pete was unnerved by the way they thought and acted and even spoke in unison. (Myka had grown to love Pete in her own way, but their partnership often required spit, glue, and duct tape to function.)

In her report, this was what she focused on. Former Agent Wells was competent, helpful, and willing to risk her life to protect Warehouse Agents, Myka dutifully noted. (H.G. Wells had insisted that she was fine, that it would take more than a scrap of driftwood to do her in, but she’d been shivering so much as she said it that she could barely stand.)

She’d been amazing – rushing in to save the day, freeing Artie, tracking down clues – and Myka knew, deep within her bones, that she would be a fantastic addition to the Warehouse. Surely the Regents would recognize that as well. (So why was she holding her breath as they waited in Artie’s office for their final say on her fate?)

Myka told herself that she wasn’t surprised, that she knew that they’d let the new agent join the team, but she couldn’t help the wide grin that spread over her face when a beaming H.G. Wells strode into the room.

Myka hadn’t been prepared for Artie’s hostility, but she found that it didn’t even bother her very much as she swept through the B&B on their guest’s grand tour. Helena (it seemed silly to keep calling her by her full name now that they were officially working together, and she’d insisted that Helena was just fine for the woman who had saved her from another century stuck in bronze) seemed to call everything “quaint” and “charming” and “lovely” and it was way, way too British but also kind of adorable and it just made her grin wider.

It was ridiculous how happy Myka was. Artie was pissed at her, they’d just returned from a near-fatal mission, and to top it all off, the B&B’s pipes wouldn’t exactly enjoy the strain of another resident. Maybe it was just leftover adrenaline burning itself off as giddiness, she reasoned.

Or maybe it was having a friend.

Pete and Claudia were her friends, sure, but they were closer to siblings. Leena was more like a watchful aunt and Artie was her grumpy uncle (only they weren’t married, because _eww_ ). But Helena was somebody that she could stay up late with talking about her favorite books and laugh at as she tried a Reese’s Cup for the first time (her face was _priceless_ ). She could make literary references and jokes and Helena would actually understand them and find them funny (she’d let out a short, throaty laugh and turn to look at her, eyes twinkling with amusement). Myka found that they could even talk about life things – they could complain about paperwork woes and swap stories of artifact retrievals and even talk about more personal pieces of their lives.

These conversations started out simply. They talked of friends, acquaintances, and eventually even old lovers. (Helena always smirked at the blush that spread across Myka’s cheeks during those particular stories.) Family was harder. She told Myka of her brother and parents, of her poverty growing up and the fabulous riches she and Charles had later accumulated. Myka offered up tidbits about Tracy and her mother. Both of them were silent on the subject of the family members that had caused them the most pain: the stony father and the daughter that had been taken.

“You know, I’ve never had anything like this,” Helena told her out of the blue one day. They had lapsed into a comfortable silence after a discussion on the mechanics of airplanes (which endlessly fascinated her new companion), and the sound of her voice caused Myka to look up from contemplating her bedspread and stare at her in surprise. “Where – or rather, when – I’m from, women weren’t inclined to talk about scientific pursuits. At least, it was highly discouraged.” She wrinkled her nose in a bemused manner. “But you all today, with your Marie Curie and Amelia Earhart and putting women in outer space? It’s astounding.”

“It’s pretty great, isn’t it?” Myka agreed, not entirely sure what she’d meant by her first pronouncement but smiling at her anyway.

“What’s really great is you, Myka. Having someone to talk to about these things –an equal, who doesn’t keep looking at me like some fainting damsel with a head full of fluff? What I was missing all those years ago was someone like you.” And her smile was so disarmingly earnest that Myka couldn’t help but look away in embarrassment.

“I think so, too,” she told her awkwardly, the words she had carefully lined up in her head jostling and jumbling each other out of order on the way out of her mouth. She pressed on anyway. “About you. And talking with you. It’s nice, you know, to have somebody like you here.”

And H.G. looked so taken aback at the thought that she was _wanted_ , that she was _important_ , that Myka wanted nothing more than to stride across the room and gather her in her arms. She settled for sliding off the bed and setting a hand in her shoulder. “That’s very kind of you to say,” Helena managed after a moment. “Thank you.”

“Hey, it’s the truth,” Myka returned, grinning crookedly.

Helena looked at her fondly for a moment more and then ended the moment with a drawn-out sigh and a slight shift to the left that put her out of Myka’s reach – but not as a rebuttal, as she showed by trailing her fingers lightly down Myka’s arm as she stepped away.

“I’m famished, Myka, and the others won’t be back for ages.” Helena’s eyes sparkled with excitement as she regarded her. “What do you say we venture to that restaurant downtown – Pizza Pot, was it? – that Pete’s been urging me to visit? We could make a date of it.”

And her tone was so suggestive, and her smile was so hopeful, that Myka almost pushed through and said yes. But –

“I don’t eat pizza.” She didn’t mean for it to come out so flat and harsh, didn’t mean to obliterate Helena’s grin so swiftly. “It’s just, just a thing. A personal thing.”

“Oh.” God help her, Helena actually looked hurt.

“And, uh, it’s “Pizza Pit,” not “Pizza Pot,” she added lamely. Helena just kept staring (no, glaring).

“I understand,” Helena said stiffly. “I think I may have misunderstood your intentions. I apologize – social interactions have changed so very much since my time, and –”

“Helena, I would love to go out with you tonight,” Myka burst out. “Just not for pizza. Or cheesy fries. Or, or cake, or whatever other crazy thing Pete told you to eat.” Myka gave her a pleading look. “I just can’t, okay?”

Helena seemed to understand the urgency and depth of her emotions, but seemed utterly bewildered at their cause (not to mention their sudden outpouring from normally-reserved Myka). “So you mean to tell me that you would like to take me to dinner… but not eat anything?”

“We could go for salad,” Myka suggested weakly.

Helena looked nonplussed at the suggestion. “Myka, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”

“It’s complicated. Really complicated.”

“Dear, you’re speaking to a time-traveler that works with you in a building full of the strangest items in the world,” Helena told her, smiling gently. “I think we can overcome a bit of complication.” With that, she gracefully set herself down on the bed and looked at her expectantly.

Explaining her problem to Helena was harder in some ways that telling Pete.

First of all, Helena thought that an “eating disorder” meant some sort of intestinal issue. It took a while for her to really understand that it was purely psychological, and getting her to that point was excruciating. “It was me,” Myka had to tell her, over and over. “It was me; I did that to myself. It was my fault.”

But when she finally got it, it was one of the most wonderful moments in Myka’s life. She wasn’t scornful (like her father) or sad (like her mother) or worried (like Pete). She was just _there_ , just _her_ , and she put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it and talked about corsets and foot bindings and husbands and the expectations society had for women in her age and how they just seemed to have grown since then. And it didn’t make sense, not all of it, especially when she brought up William Gull and female hysteria and other outdated terms, but Myka didn’t care.

She just sat there, drinking in Helena’s voice like wine until she was intoxicated with the simple fact that Helena didn’t understand. She didn’t try to; she didn’t have to. She just needed to sit on the bed with her and tell Myka over and over that being that way wasn’t her fault – it was something that had been done to her by an unjust world.

And if Helena thought that – Helena, with her dark hair, snapping eyes, and clever smile that were so strangely, achingly familiar – Myka would believe it with every fiber of her soul, because _Helena believed in her_.

The weight of the guilt she had carried for years (for being a burden, a screw-up, a freak)  fell away, and suddenly she felt as if she could rise up and drift away into the sky.

Instead, she floated over to Helena and kissed her in a way that said _thank you_.

* * *

Later that week, as she and Helena held hands under the table, Myka dared to try pizza for the first time in years. (Pizza Pit's food, as it turned out, was God-awful.)

(Somehow, she didn’t care.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a few little notes:  
> This isn't the end of the story. I don't know that Myka will ever get "cured," exactly, because that takes a long, long time, if it happens. And even if certain special people can help you get there, it's you that needs to make the final push. Sorry, H.G. doesn't get to magically fix Myka within one chapter and everything is lovely. It doesn't work like that.  
> In other news, here's a fun fact: Pizza Pit is an actual restaurant in my town. It is exactly as delicious as it sounds (that is, not at all).


	8. Fine

                When Myka moved back to Colorado Springs, she didn’t eat for a full week.

                She took an almost savage pleasure in the sluggish pulse in her head, the ache in her legs, the way her stomach twisted and tore at itself. She deserved it for being so blind, for being so stupid, for trusting her –

                Artie and Mrs. Frederick had refused to punish her, claiming that Helena (Myka could hardly bear to hear her name) had fooled them all. Myka knew, deep in the hollows of her heart, that they were wrong. She had advocated for her, she had protected her, she had let her into their confidence and almost brought ruin to the world as a result.

                _She could have ended everything._ Banishing herself from her home wasn’t enough for Myka. She deserved to suffer a little more.

                Her parents tiptoed around her on the issue of her sudden appearance, except for one ill-fated attempt at a confrontation her father had pulled on her second day back. She’d simply turned, looked him dead in the eye, and said, “I’m not going to talk about it.” If she’d tried that line as a teenager, she’d have received a thorough verbal lashing (and most likely have been grounded for a week).

                But ever since the incident with Edgar Allen Poe’s pen and journal, her parents had carried themselves with far more respect and perhaps a bit of fear around her, so her father had simply averted his gaze, nodded, and busied himself with inventory.

                Even though she could see the familiar worried look on her mother’s face whenever she refused a meal, they didn’t pursue that subject any further either. And so a sort of purgatory clouded itself around her, composed of long days of bitterness and hunger and longing for what the world had taken from her and what she had taken from herself.

                The weight was falling away again, dripping from her like wax to leave a bare and burnt-out wick behind. Her hands shook as she shelved books, her vision swam when she stood, the wet ink of her thoughts blurred and smudged instead of printing its usual crisp lines and precise curves. She couldn’t concentrate on anything, couldn’t speak clearly, couldn’t even walk without wobbling.

                By the end of the week, she wasn’t able to read. Her focus slipped from her grasp every time she attempted to rein it in, and she found herself staring at the same page, the same paragraph, and then the same word for endless moments as her brain struggled to piece together some sort of meaning for what she was seeing. And then she simply couldn’t bear it any more.

                With a strangled cry, she snatched up the book and tossed it viciously across the room. That felt so good that she picked up the one next to it and sent it spinning into the wall like its brother. So she went for almost half an hour, abusing the books that had been her only friends for many harrowing years of her life until she collapsed in a sobbing heap on the floor. Crawling about on her hands and knees, she gathered up the battered hardcovers and tattered paperbacks she’d thrown, muttering broken bits of apologies to books that did not hear or care.

                Because that was it, wasn’t it? She was sorry, so sorry, for everything that was her fault and everything that wasn’t.

Myka was a willow tree that had always been able to bend, and only then did she learn how to break.

It wasn’t a clean break, for of course that would have been too much to ask for after half a lifetime of strain and sorrow. There was twisting and tearing, wrenching, and hurting, and the wound left behind when part of her finally fell away was ugly and raw. Even then, it wasn’t completely gone. Jagged edges remained, and she was troubled by phantom pain when she reached out to where it had once been and was met only with emptiness.

But she filled the gaping space with work and bandaged her hurt with the stories she’d loved as a child and felt herself healing, bit by bit. She would have been fine, she knew. Her life would have been duller, her years dragging with tedium, but she might have been happy.

But then Pete and Steve showed up and swept her newly-steadied feet from under her.

                She faced the death and wonder and ghosts (literally, in Helena’s case) of her past, and she found herself ready for them. When Ms. Frederick asked, she answered.

                In the end, Myka was left with a suspicion that the only reason Ms. Frederick had let her go home in the first place was so that she could have the time to grapple and beat down – hopefully for the final time –her illness. She was a smart woman, as Myka was aware. Maybe she had hoped – maybe she had known – that Myka would find the strength to cast out her demons.

                (Years later, when Claudia stabbed Artie and cleansed him in one sharp stroke of his evils, Myka wished that she’d known of the artifact earlier. Really, impaling herself would have been a walk in the park compared to what she’d done.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah! This wasn't even that long, but it's still pretty much the longest thing I've ever written and I'm actually pretty happy with it overall. Thanks for sticking with it, guys. You're all great. Take care of yourselves.


End file.
